Trustworthy shop for buying new computer

GreyBadger

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Hi all

Here’s a silly situation. I have up to 2.5k in my pocket for a gaming pc.... and I can’t spend it! Perhaps I’d better expand on that a little. :) (might be best you get a cup of tea and a digestive, before reading on.)

Waaaay back in the mists of time, our first PC, a 486 monster, came from “Special Reserve“ in Chelmsford and was great. We knew nothing about PC’s. We had a friend with a 286 who came along to help us choose and our only buying criteria was that our new machine should be able to run Doom (yes,the original) and TFX, better than his did. We stood for about twenty minutes watching the two perform, while the salesman fidgeted impatiently, before giving it the thumbs up and proudly going home with our new machine. which as It turned out would be the start for me of a lifelong love of PC gaming. Of course it was also my first lesson in how fickle the technology was, as a very short time later Pentium was released. But we’ll gloss over that. Point is, I had that machine for a long while and while buying blind could have been a disaster, fate smiled on us, it was a great little machine and I loved it.

All good things though, etc and eventually it was time to retire our friend (the pc... not the chap who helped us choose.) for something newer and shinier. Overconfident because of our last success and now knowing slightly more about what we wanted. We bought a new machine from a company, in Luton this time and it turned out to be a HUGE mistake! The machine wouldn’t run when we got home, which meant we had to go back to sort it, which meant waiting till after the weekend (because of course it did.) Then when it actually did run, it performed disappointingly and was really loud. On top of that it didn’t have all the components we’d asked for and on querying it we were told in no uncertain terms that they’d never agreed to the spec we wanted, so basically we were lying. Needless to say we went straight for the refund and after a short battle ending with us asking for their full details for our solicitor, they stumped up the money and we kicked the dust off our shoes as we left.

Interestingly enough, a while later we ended up chatting with an ex employee of theirs and it turned out they’d left this supposedly reputable company after only a few months, because their practices were so shoddy. But needless to say, the whole experience left a really bad taste in our mouths and made us very wary about where we bought from.

In the end our next PC was a hand me down from that same friend who helped us choose the original. He’d recently upgraded and was happy for a bit of a cash injection toward that. We were happy because obviously we knew him and we knew the machine we were getting.

That PC lasted us a long time and saw us move to Lincolnshire, where we were Lucky enough to find a really great independent PC repair shop, (not the norm sadly.) who looked after us and that machine through a number of upgrades and when eventually it was time for a new one, he helped us make a list of what we wanted (because we’ve never become really pc literate) and he built it for us.

So as you can see. All in all, apart from that one blip, we’ve been really lucky in our PC history. But that was a while ago now and we haven’t had a viable gaming PC for a few years, or the money for a new one. Well that situation just changed and I have effectively a one off opportunity to spend this huge (to me anyway) amount of dosh on a new gaming PC. But our PC guy retired a few years back and we have no other PC contacts anymore. And in case you’ve not been able to read between the lines, building one myself is simply not an option. (Although I do know I want a 2080 Invidia graphics card and 32 ram.)

All of which leaves us back to buying from a large company again, but absolutely no clue who we can trust. We’ve looked at a few of the names you seem to hear the most, but then every time we check, we find customer service horror stories and of course there are always going to be some of those.... but still. Every time that happens, we get a cold flash back to that terrible company in Luton.

Last week we even got as far as having an order in the basket of one well known company... but then a glitch on the credit card meant we had to delay to sort it out and wouldn’t you know it, while we were sorting that out, we found a slew of bad customer reports we’d not found. Complaining about undisclosed refurbished parts and awful customer service. So we’ve not been back.

Anyway, there you go. Money in my pocket. Rough(Ish) idea of what I want. I mean for goodness sake, how hard can it be?

Badger.
 
Scan.co.uk, Overclockers.co.uk, cclonline.com are 3 companies i would recommend although i have never bought a ready built PC from them i have bought a lot of PC components over the years and had great service from all of them including dealing with faulty parts etc.

I'm sure if you search hard enough you will find bad reviews for all of them as no company is perfect and people only normally leave bad reviews when something goes wrong and very rarely good reviews when it goes right.

£2500 is a big chunk of money to spend, what are you looking to use the PC for besides gaming and what game are you looking to play and does that price include a monitor as well, if not what monitor (resolution refresh rate etc are you playing at) ?
 
Hi Carlos :)
You’re absolutely right of course. People are more likely to complain if they get bad service, than they are to praise if they get good service and honestly I’m trying to keep that in mind. Still it’d be nice to see a solid body of people strongly recommending a particular company. If I had to “look hard” to find the unhappy folks, I think I’d be much more confident.

One of the companies you mentioned, “Scan” is actually the one I’m currently looking at. Specifically their 3XS Vengeance RTX. :) Their price doesn’t include a monitor, but I have a nice monitor so not worried.

What am I going to use this PC for apart from gaming? That’s an easy one... nothing! Lol. We have a laptop we use for bits and bobs and this new PC will be pure indulgence. I haven’t had a gaming PC in years and frankly didn’t see much chance of getting another. I won’t see this opportunity again and I really wanted something kick a** as I’ve never had that before.

The games I want to play... gaghghgh... so many I’ve never had a chance to see with all their bells and whistles running! :) But if I had to tie it down I think that my flight sims are at the top of the list. I can’t wait to run X-Plane 11 with no holes barred and DCS running at the top of its game. Maybe the new Microsoft sim somewhere down the road, depending on how it’s received and I’m getting more and more tempted by Star Citizen... if it ever really becomes a thing. :)

Badger
 
+1 for Scan and Overclockers (used ccl once for a monitor that was fine too) Have used them both over the years and they have always had good customer service. I have mainly bought bits though rather than pre built but three are some fine looking machines.

What monitor model is it?
 
I don’t remember the model of the monitor Chuck. It’s been wrapped up in the loft since we moved here, so I haven’t actually seen it in a year. But I know it was a good one when we got it. Supplied by the guy who built the PC for us. :)

I’m sure the monitor will be fine for the new PC, but I’ve been using a smart tv for my consoles and I know the laptop works with it, so I’m sort of hoping I’ll be able to use it instead (or in addition to.) If the resolutions are ok etc, it’d be fantastic to flight sim on. :)
 
No worries, I would try and check the spec of the monitor out just so we can make sure is going to work well with new PC.

Monitors have moved on recently and spending 2.5k on a PC only for it to be let down by monitor would be a shame. Obviously it might be a good spec but you might want to consider the resolution QHD rather than say 1080P with a higher refresh rate for games.
 
As mentioned, Scan & Ocuk will both provide very good service & products.

I would really advise against buying a new PC until the autumn if you can wait a bit longer.

The reason for this is that AMD & Nvidia are both going to be launching new hardware this autumn, which is quite likely going to eclipse the current offerings by some margin.

AMD have new CPU's & GPU's launching (the same gpu hardware to be found in the upcoming new consoles) & Nvida will be launching their new GPU's.

Anything you buy now featuring Nvidia is effectively discontinued even if it's a 2080 or 2080ti. Their new cards are going to considerably more powerful at the same price point.

Google Ampere, RDNA2 & Ryzen Vermeer for more info:)

As above I would also highly recomend buying a new monitor. Your experience will be greatly enhanced if you have at least a 1440p high refresh rate monitor.
 

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